Transcending our condition

While walking the streets of Mumbai, a city of great paradox I came across a family who had made the sidewalk their home.  A piece of plastic had been placed from the top of the boundary wall to the edge of the sidewalk and anchored with stones and bricks to form a makeshift tent.  On the wall, inside the tent, hung a number of photographs of Hindu deities and portraits of, I assume, family members.  The thing that caught my eye though, was not the state in which the family was eking out an existence in a city without mercy, but rather the expression of total love and joy on the little boys face as his mother poured water over his body to wash away the soap suds of his early morning bath.  The love and tenderness with which his mother wiped him down and proceeded to dress him.  This in total oblivion of their condition or their surroundings.  I realized then, that love, not any love, unconditional love, gives us the power to transcend all obstacles material and spiritual.